Your client’s blog is using tags to categorize posts, creating pages such as www.client_name/blog/tag/food

You wish to noindex these but it’s not as easy as a simple click in a WordPress plugin…

That’s where Google Tag Manager comes in, where instead all you need is a simple custom HTML tag:

<script>

// Removes any existing meta robots tag

jQuery(‘meta[name=”robots”]’).remove();

// Create an empty meta element, called ‘meta’

varmeta=document.createElement(‘meta’);

// Add a name attribute to the meta, with the value ‘robots’

meta.name=‘robots’;

// Add a content attribute to the meta element, with the value ‘noindex, follow’

meta.content=‘noindex, follow’;

// Insert this meta element into the head of the page, using jQuery

jQuery(‘head’).append(meta);

</script>

By setting the trigger to be on every /tag pages, you ensure all will now have the meta robot noindex.

That simple.

But you can take it even further, by following a similar process and implementing meta descriptions and titles through GTM:

<script>

varm=document.createElement(‘meta’);

m.name=‘description’;

m.content=‘This article is the best I have ever seen and I’m going to tell all my friends about it.’;

document.head.appendChild(m);

</script>

Although this should be used as a last resort kind of solution, testing have shown this works and “Google crawlers index dynamically injected meta data as well.”

Their words.

2) Plugins

Another way to implement changes easily is by installing a plugin.

It’s also very tempting, especially when you see how many of them there are available for a CMS such as WordPress or Shopify.

Sometime they may also be the safest solutions.

For example, implementing Google Analytics through a plugin, instead of directly in the core code, can avoid scenarios where your client updates his theme, and wipes out your code along with your precious data.

If you are not able to install plugins on your CMS, then you may be considering things like custom JavaScript code that would do the same job.

Again these are things that you would do if all standard implementation is impossible.

Plugins may decrease your website performances and load time – yikes!

So keep that in mind before installing that arguably valuable plugin that plays an air horn every time you login (it’s a thing).

3) Work with the client’s developers

This is maybe the solution you didn’t want to hear about.

But the truth is sometimes there is just no other way around working with the people that actually made the custom work on the CMS.

Although they probably had the best intentions in mind, there may be some changes that need to be done to the code in order to better suit SEO.

For example, a simple change in the template could fix a H1 missing issue.

Or adding a simple line of code would have automatic self-referencing canonicalization for all pages.

A few things to keep in mind to make this process easier:

Clearly communicate what changes you recommend and why, along with how that would benefit the website.

Be willing to compromise and prioritize the changes that will make the biggest impact. I know you really want them to upload these optimized images you sent them, but you may have to push that to later for now

Be patient.

In conclusion, as we’ve seen there are things you can do to improve SEO in spite of a difficult CMS: By using tools to make this faster and more efficient that it has ever been. But remember that nothing trumps conventional implementation, and good communication with the client is key.